I still remember cool 2015 nights watching the prerelease marketing for this game and getting super excited; I finally played it 9 years later in 2024 and it’s everything I hoped it would be back then and maybe a little more.

This game is big in a couple ways: firstly and most obviously the game world is just impossibly large, they do a great deal to make sure that exploring it feels like an adventure too, by giving you the names and the dates when systems and planets were discovered by other players, it gives you a feeling of permanence to the places you visit. On the other hand when you are in systems or on planets that haven’t been explored yet it really does feel you’re in uncharted territory, leaving your mark on the game’s universe.

Secondly there are lots of systems in the game and mechanics to play with. There’s all sorts of stuff you can do that the game throws at you. Running your freighter, managing planetary colonies, doing expeditions, or building ships. There’s always something on the side to do, and that’s without counting the in game quests and getting to the center of the galaxy.

All of these interactive systems mean there is always some task to do. This keeps the gameplay from getting boring because

No Mans Sky gives the player a LOT of agency over how you do all this stuff!

Having agency over all these big systems combined with the huge universe gives the game a huge sense of freedom that makes it nearly impossible for me to put it down!!

Absolutely banger game, that updates have turned into gold. They've put care into the tech too, it's well optimized; runs flawlessly on Steam Deck!